During his six-year imprisonment on Manus Island, a mobile phone was Behrouz Boochani’s most valued possession. It kept him in touch with the outside world and his own mental wellbeing. And it enabled him to write a memoir of life on the island – a literary tour de force that would earn him international renown.
A journalist and opponent of Iran’s oppressive theocracy, Boochani was forced into hiding when the offices of his magazine, Werya, were raided by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard.
After three months on the run, he fled his homeland and made his way overland to Indonesia.
Two months later, along with 60 others on a boat making a perilous crossing of the Timor Strait, he was intercepted by the Australian Navy.
He and his fellow asylum-seekers were detained on Christmas Island before being transferred to Manus.
It was while on Manus that he was, with access to his mobile phone, able to establish contact with journalists and advocacy groups overseas.
He filed reports on the abuses occurring on the island. These reports would form the basis of his prison memoir, No Friend But The Mountains.
Published by Picador in 2018, with a foreword by Richard Flanagan, this masterful account would win both the Victorian Prize for Literature and the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Nonfiction.
It was described by judges of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards as ‘an outstanding work of literature in its own right…remarkable for the circumstances of its production…(and)…compelling and shocking content’.
Boochani’s arrival on Christmas Island was ill-timed. He missed, by only a handful of days, a deadline imposed by the Rudd government and was denied the opportunity to settle here.
But Australia’s loss was New Zealand’s gain. In July 2020, Behrouz Boochani was granted refugee status by the New Zealand government. He is now a research fellow at the University of Canterbury.
With his new-found legal status, Behrouz Boochani is at last allowed to set foot on our shores.
He will appear as keynote speaker at the opening night of the Rural Australians for Refugees 2024 national conference to be held at the Kyneton Town Hall on Friday October 11.
This exciting event, many months in the planning, will be compered by former ABC presenter Derek Guille and includes an appearance by former UNHCR Commissioner Gillian Triggs.
Organisers expect tickets to be in great demand and urge anyone interested to book early.
Tickets are available at www.mrsc.vic.gov.au/rar
